MARY OF LORRAINE (1515-1560), generally known as MARY OF GUISE, queen of James V. and afterwards regent of Scot land, was born at Bar on Nov. 22, 1515. She was the eldest child of Claude of Guise and Antoinette of Bourbon, and married in 1534 Louis II. of Orleans, duke of Longueville, to whom in 1535 she bore a son, Francis (d. 1550. The duke died in 7, and Mary was sought in marriage by James V., and by Henry VIII. after the death of Jane Seymour. Henry persisted in his offers after her betrothal to James V. Mary, who was made by adoption a daughter of France, married James at St. Andrews. Her two sons, James (b. May 1540) and Robert or Arthur (b. April 1541), died within a few days of one another in April 1541, and her hus band died in Dec. 1542, within a week of the birth of his heiress, Mary, Queen of Scots. The regency fell to the heir presumptive James, earl of Arran, who favoured England and the Protestant party, and who hoped to secure the infant princess for his son.
Mary of Lorraine was approached by the English commissioner, Sir Ralph Sadler, to induce her to further her daughter's marriage contract with Edward VI. The marriage treaty between Mary, not then one year old, and Edward was signed in July at Greenwich, and guaranteed that Mary should be placed in Henry's keeping when she was ten. (See MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.) In 1550 Mary of Lorraine visited France and obtained from Henry II. the confirmation of the dukedom and revenues of Chatelherault for the earl of Arran, in the hope of inducing him to resign the regency. Arran refused to relinquish the regency until when he resigned after receiving an assurance of his rights to the succession. Mary had now to deal with an empty exchequer and with a strong opposition to her daughter's marriage with the dauphin. The first revolt against her authority arose from an attempt to establish a standing army. When she provoked a war with England in 1557 the nobles refused to cross the border. In matters of religion she tried to hold the balance between the Catho lics and Protestants and allowed the Presbyterians the practice of their religion so long as they refrained from public preachings in Edinburgh and Leith, but the marriage of Francis II. and her daughter Mary in 1558 strengthened her position, and in 1559 she adopted the religious policy of her relatives, the Guises. She was
reconciled with Archbishop Hamilton, and took up arms against the Protestants of Perth, who, incited by Knox, had destroyed the Charterhouse with the royal tombs. They submitted on condi tion that no foreign garrison was imposed on Perth and that the religious questions should be brought before the Scottish parlia ment. Mary of Lorraine broke the spirit of this agreement by gar risoning Perth with Scottish troops in the pay of France. The lords of the Congregation soon assembled in considerable force on Cupar Muir. Mary retreated to Edinburgh and thence to Dun bar, while Edinburgh opened its gates to the reformers, who issued a proclamation (Oct. 21, 1559) claiming that the regent was de posed. The lords of the Congregation sought help from Elizabeth, while the regent had recourse to France. The strength of her op ponents was increased by the defection of Chatelherault and his son Arran, and by the betrayal of her plans by her secretary Mait land to the lords of the Congregation. In Oct. 1559 they made an unsuccessful attack on Leith. Mary entered Edinburgh and con ducted a campaign in Fife.
When an English army under Lord Grey entered Scotland in March 1560, the regent received an asylum in Edinburgh castle, which was held strictly neutral by John Erskine. Before her death ( June II, 1560) Mary sent for the lords of the Congregation, with whom she pleaded for the maintenance of the French alliance. She was buried in the church of the nunnery of St. Peter at Reims.
The chief sources for her history are the Calendar of State Papers for the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. in the Rolls Series; A. Teulet, Papiers d'etat . . . relatifs a l'histoire de l'Ecosse au XVIe siecle (3 vols., 1851), for the Bannatyne club ; Hamilton Papers, ed. J. Bain (2 vols., 1890-99) ; Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots, 1547-1603 (2 vols., 1898-1900), etc. The Life in Miss Strickland's Queens of Scotland (vols. i.—ii.) is based on original documents. Miss M. Wood has edited The Foreign Correspondence with Marie de Lorraine, Queen of Scotland (2 vols., 1923 and 1925) and Miss A. I. Cameron has edited The Scottish Correspondence of Mary of Lorraine (1927).